“Disposition of the U.S. Forces in the Southern Area of Han River Would Help the Korean-U.S. Relationship”

On December 3, Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of Defense for policy, announced that the U.S. government will discuss with Korea about the number of U.S. troops stationed in Korea.

After delivering a speech on “the ability of troops and disposition” in a conference held by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) based in Washington, Undersecretary Feith said, “The issue of the number of troops will be discussed from now on, but nothing has been decided yet,” in answering the question, “Do you think the U.S. forces in Korea will be reduced?”

Feith said, “We have discussed with the Korean government many times, focusing on the plan for integrating and arranging the U.S. forces in Korea reasonably. We think that distributing American forces to the southern suburb of Seoul, where the population is concentrated, will achieve important military goals, and at the same time it can help to resolve various problems between the forces and the Koreans.”

He didn’t exclude the possibility of reducing the number of U.S. soldiers in Korea, Japan and Germany, emphasizing, “After the relocation process concludes, if the same number of troops are arranged abroad are equal to the troops in the U.S., it would deserve some attention.”

Answering the question about the dissolution of United Nations Command, he declined to address it directly, saying, “We are sure that the issue will be a part of our discussions in Korea.”

Furthermore, Feith added that the U.S. forces have launched a long-term plan to reinforce the mobility of troops. He will visit 13 countries in Europe to explain the plan for troops re-disposition with Marc Grossman, undersecretary of Defense for political affairs, and will visit other countries afterwards.

maypole@donga.com